openclaw/skill-refiner

Skill Refiner

Finds every skill in the workspace, audits each against skill-creator requirements, and fixes non-compliant ones.

Workflow

Step 1 — Discover all skills

bash scripts/find_skills.sh [workspace_dir]

This searches the entire workspace for SKILL.md files (not just skills/). Skills created without following skill-creator conventions may end up anywhere.

Step 2 — Audit each skill

python3 scripts/audit_skill.py <skill-dir>

Returns JSON with:

• issues — blocking problems that must be fixed
• warnings — advisory improvements
• compliant — true only when issues is empty

Run this on every path returned by Step 1. Batch example:

bash scripts/find_skills.sh | while read dir; do
  python3 scripts/audit_skill.py "$dir"
done

Step 3 — Report findings

Summarize results in a table:

| Skill | Location | Issues | Warnings | Status | |-------|----------|--------|----------|--------| | my-skill | skills/my-skill | 0 | 1 | ⚠️ | | bad-skill | temp/bad-skill | 2 | 0 | ❌ |

Step 4 — Fix non-compliant skills

For each skill with issues, fix in this order:

1. Missing/malformed frontmatter — Add or correct the --- block with name and description only
2. Extra frontmatter fields — Remove any fields other than name and description
3. Weak description — Rewrite to include: what the skill does + trigger conditions ("Use when...")
4. Extraneous files — Delete README.md, INSTALLATION_GUIDE.md, CHANGELOG.md, etc.
5. Wrong location — If a skill is outside skills/, move it to ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/<skill-name>/
6. Naming violations — Rename directory to lowercase-hyphen-case

For warnings (advisory):

• Long SKILL.md (>500 lines): extract detailed content into references/ files and link from SKILL.md
• Unlinked references: add links in SKILL.md body
• Weak description: improve trigger language

Step 5 — Validate fixes

Re-run audit_skill.py on each fixed skill to confirm "compliant": true.

Optionally package with:

python3 /opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw/skills/skill-creator/scripts/package_skill.py <skill-dir>

Compliance Checklist

A compliant skill must have:

• [ ] SKILL.md at the root of a named directory
• [ ] YAML frontmatter with exactly name and description (no other fields)
• [ ] description includes what the skill does AND when to trigger it
• [ ] Directory name: lowercase letters, digits, hyphens only; ≤64 chars
• [ ] No extraneous files (README.md, CHANGELOG.md, etc.)
• [ ] Resources only in scripts/, references/, or assets/
• [ ] All references/ files linked from SKILL.md body
• [ ] SKILL.md body ≤500 lines (split into references/ if longer)